She says, she says
by jennygiraffadil
Summary: When a wizard is outed to the muggle world, they like to call it paranoid schizorphrenia. When a wizard is outed by his mother, they like to call him Sirius Black.
1. Chapter 1

**Title:** She says, she says.  
**Pairing:** Remus/Sirius.  
**Disclaimer:** I wish.  
**Summary:** When a wizard is "outed" to the muggle world, they like to call it "paranoid schizorphrenia". When a wizard is outed by his mother, they like to call him Sirius Black.  
---------------

Forgoing their usual owling over the summer, they then found it odd that, along with their expected Hogwarts letters, they also received a notice from the headmaster asking they report to his office before the feast. The train ride was oddly quiet and neither of them mentioned the missing presence across from them. They spread out, arms stretched across the back of seats, and closed their eyes.

It was dark when they arrived, and raining, but they ran as fast as they could up to the castle and their chests burned and their legs ached and they were out of breath when they shoved their way in to meet an oddly serene set of eyes behind a big desk.

"Boys," Dumbledore said, leaning back with his hands folded calmly in his lap, "I've received word from Mrs.Black that Sirius, regretfully, will not be returning this term."

They all looked at the floor then, counting the thick veins running off in silhouettes from their shoes.

"He is, as I was led to believe, rather sick. His mother wishes you to be informed before you find out for yourselves. I am terribly sorry." 

Remus was the last to slink lowly out of the door and twist the handle painfully shut. James slowed down and Peter's brow knit together with a frown.

"Before we find out for ourselves?" James scoffed and kicked the floor, "Before we snoop, she means."

"I hardly think --" Remus started but James jumped in.

"You hardly think what? She'd do something like that?"

His fists balled at his sides and his backpack slid slowly down his shoulder.

"No," Remus shot back a little stiffly, "I hardly think -- I hardly think Mrs.Black would care to inform us if that were the case." 

They came to a stop just outside of the infirmary and Peter looked nervously around.

"Are you plotting?" he asked the other boys and their lips tightened into lines.

"Well, she really is a substantial idiot if she thinks she can outwit the marauders," James grinned suddenly and Remus, almost uncharacteristcally, nodded his agreement.

"Something is definitely out of sync," he added and Peter shuffled from foot to foot.

"We're going to find out, right?" he asked, his beady eyes almost glowing, "With Sirius, I mean." 

They pressed themselves against the wall as Madam Pomfrey strolled past behind them and nodded.

"Oh yes," James murmured quietly, "What did she expect? Us to give up that easily?"

--

It took two weeks for them to find out that Sirius was in a muggle hospital, and a futher three for them to find out which one. Remus had been laid haphazardly across his bed when his friends had barrelled through the door with the news and his chest still heaved from the stinging breath he'd inhaled sharply when they told him.

"But --" he argued gently, "Why would --"

And his hands shook as he sat up. He let himself balance precariously on the edge of his mattress with the sheets bunched up around him and he clung to his pillow.

"Why there?" he ground out through clenched teeth. And he could still smell him.

James let out a heavy sigh and stomped across to the window.

"Because," he commented dryly, "She is evil. A fact, so it seems, you have yet to grasp Mr.Lupin." 

"I knew all along!" Peter cut in and they all shook their heads and nearly let themselves laugh under their breath.

"I don't understand," Remus said again when they'd stilled and James was stuck looking out at the grounds. He didn't turn then, but he shrugged, and Remus's hands tightened into white knots.

"I mean --" he added, and his chest felt suddenly heavy, "I mean -- it's Sirius -- why would anybody --"

"We're finding him," James interrupted and he went quiet, "We're finding him in that place, and we're getting him out."

Remus nodded as James padded his way back to the door and his cheeks were flushed with a light hue that disappeared beneath his robes. Neither of them had spent long thinking about it since they'd found out, mainly because they didn't want to, or, in Remus's case, it hurt too much. He missed warm breath against his neck when they were pressed up against the side of the couch but he didn't dare say a word. 

"What if there really is something wrong with him?" Peter asked suddenly and Remus chewed on a loose piece of skin on the inside of his lip.

"There isn't," he muttered harshly, and tried to let himself get washed away in the apathy or the anger or the hatred, but his eyes still stung like his cheeks. 

"There isn't," James agreed.

Peter nodded. 

"Okay," he said, "Okay."

--

It was harder on a night, Remus realised, as the loose spring in his mattress bore its way up into his lower spine and he twisted and turned and wriggled. His muscles felt sore and his left hip hurt from spending too much time pushing his weight into it.

The moon pooled on the floor beside him and if he squinted through the curtains he could see it; inching closer. A tingle spread through his joints and he swallowed and sat up.

"Remus," he could remember Sirius saying, "Can't sleep, either?" and he'd smiled and Remus had smiled back. He'd crawled into bed with him a few minutes later and their eyes drifted closed as their stomachs touched, and their hands touched, and their hair folded together against the greying pillow.

"Remus," he thought he heard again but he closed his eyes tight and tried to rub the memories away with the backs of his hands.

It was well past midnight when he felt himself stalking over to Sirius's bed and letting his body collapse under the quilts. His cheek rubbed against the pillow and he sighed.

It was definitely just harder without him there at all.

--

"Mrs.Black," a woman asked gently, her thick blonde hair twisted into a tight bun on the top of her head, "I'm sorry to interrupt, but I have a few questions."

"Please make it quick."

"Well, in regards to your son," she continued, gripping tightly to a clipboard, "The doctor will need a few details before he can make a proper assessment of the situation."

Walburga Black, with her legs crossed elegantly on the shoddy plastic seats, grimaced, and her perfectly coloured lips twisted into a scowl. 

"Fine," she snapped. And the nurse stuttered.

"When did these symptoms start?"

"He was barely two and he got it into his head that he could make objects fly," she said dryly and coughed politely to clear her throat, "Of course, it didn't stop there. Now he thinks he's a wizard." 

She didn't laugh. But neither did the nurse. Her nose crinkled as she stood and turned.

"Will that be all?" 

--

James lingered in the common room until all of the others had cleared out, pacing fitfully by the dulling fire. Remus sat on the couch, repeatedly folding the edges of pages in his book, with Peter next to him; watching.

"We have a plan," James hissed under his breath, barely after two in the morning, and the dark bags under his eyes didn't even heed a comment, "We can get him out."

Remus looked at him suddenly and the red rims around his eyes were, thankfully, cast into shadow from the thick velvet curtains obscuring the window. Peter crossed his legs and rubbed his hands together excitedly.

"Next Hogsmeade visit," James nodded, continuing; "Saturday. Next Hogsmeade we go to that place and we do whatever we can."

"How do we get there?" Remus asked and the corners of James's thinning lips almost turned into a quick smirk.

"We fly."


	2. Chapter 2

**Title:** She says, she says part 2.  
**Pairing:** Remus/Sirius.  
**Disclaimer:** I wish.  
**Summary:** When a wizard is "outed" to the muggle world, they like to call it "paranoid schizorphrenia". When a wizard is outed by his mother, they like to call him Sirius Black.  
-----------

Remus could barely keep his head from crashing against the desk when Charms class rolled around. It was Friday, and the heavy bags under his eyes were folding delicately into the veins, but he still liked to think nobody noticed. James sat to his left scribbling furiously onto a loose leaf of parchment - dotted with ideas of their grand escape plan, no doubt. And Peter was doing nothing short of encouraging him. 

But he was tired, they were all tired. Remus had spent the last few nights curled up on Sirius's bed, trying fitfully to fall asleep. But every time his eyes so much as drooped the heady scent of shampoo or aftershave or toothpaste, anything just -- just _remotely_ Sirius locked down his spine and his cheeks went numb.

He'd tried writing to him, tried everything. _Sirius,_ it had read, and it had been damp and messy but just perfect, _Where are you? We're worried._ - of course, he hadn't intended the message to be anything great, just something that would reach him, something to make sure.

But he knew it would never get there in time; lying folded between the pages of his old arithmancy book under his bed.

James nudged him in the side just before his elbow knocked the inkpot to the floor and he thought, right then, morning would never come quick enough.

--

Regulus often considered writing to his mother and, for the most part, put it down to curiosity. Family ties, he had been told, were to be severed the moment his brother had been sorted into Gryffindor. And, with a sneer, he had obliged. He didn't hate him, he knew that, but it was still just curiosity. He didn't hate him but it was in his blood to carry on as if he did.

"Finally carted him off to the loony bin?" he could imagine Malfoy hissing, "About time!"

He agreed, of course he agreed, but the hasty glares from James Potter and the sullen looks from Remus made his stomach tighten and his anger flare beneath his skin.

He jutted his jaw out then, he squared his shoulders, and spat a snarl right back at them.

But before he went to breakfast, or before the mail arrived, he would always quiet down and think. It could just as easily have been him.

--

"Mr.Black?" a timid voice whispered, but Sirius didn't so much as register it, "Mr.Black?" it repeated and a doctor with long, thinning hair settled on his bed.

"He's been unresponsive for hours," a nurse whispered over his shoulder, her feet tapping spindrels of shadows across the dusty linoleum, "His mother said it was unusual. I tried to ask more but she said she had business to attend to."

"I see."

The blinds shuddered lightly as wisps of sunlight settled in white spots across their faces; the silence punctuated with shrill screams and stumbling hands.

"He just stopped talking?" the doctor asked eventually and she nodded.

"Just stopped." 

--

"Remus? Are you okay?" Lily asked tentatively, cornering him before bed and pulling him to the side. Her hands were wringing together and he didn't dare watch anything but their shoes.

"Tired," he replied, nodding, "Very tired."

She didn't say anything at first but she studied his face and the awkward slump of his shoulders and his mismatched shoes and his loose buttons.

"You're a mess," she hissed under her breath, looking around, "Is it--" 

"Don't," he snapped before she could say it, and he was almost shaking. He met her eyes then and she stilled and tried to pretend, for his sake, the entire occupancy of the common room weren't turned watching.

He took a step back and his jaw set squarely.

"Just don't."

--

Neither of them slept that night, Remus knew, the uncomfortable shuffling of bed quilts and curtains and the offset grumbling to match his own told him as much. He was dressed, as were James and Peter, well before anyone else even stirred. And it was too quiet.

He watched impatiently as dawn littered the floor. And his heart thuddered with every creeping sound that hit his ears.

"Do you think he's okay?" he asked eventually, when he caught James's movement out of the corner of his eye. He sat, cross legged on the bed, hastily trying to lace up shoes with itching fingers. 

"He's going to be," James whispered and Peter didn't say anything; his hair was mussed and for the first time, he looked agitated over something that wasn't school.

Breakfast was a fairly sullen occasion and the plate of bacon was left idly in the middle as they gulped down as much pumpkin juice as they could manage to settle their angry stomachs.

"Invisibility cloak," Remus whispered as students started filing towards the entrance hall and James nodded, slamming down his glass on the table. 

"Invisibility cloak."

Peter was nearly sick.

--

For all they'd planned, they hadn't come up with anything to fit around the obvious possibilities. Students staying behind weren't much of an issue as James had pointed out, they could easily claim they had gone for a fly around if questioned later. "But gone a bit too far afield," Remus had added and they'd almost shared a grin until Peter hiccupped a bit too loudly and his stomach growled.

They were late, the students, the trip was late. And they stood clutching brooms tightly just behind the doorway.

Remus had thought up the route and Peter had adjusted it with his knowledge of where people were going to be a rather amazing trait that still rendered them into smiles every now and again. Remus's throat hadn't loosened up since the idea had first been suggested, or demanded, and his hands were twisting into knots around the thick wood handle, aimlessly.

"Come on," James muttered, panicked, and flung his back agitatedly against the wall; "_Come on._"

"Miss. Hoover," Remus heard Professor McGonagall say, "I do not believe I have yet received your permission slip."

"Umm --" a wiry, sharp shouldered girl replied, thick bushy hair curling around her face as she rummaged in her robes.

"Oh, for fuck's sake," James ground out and they all stilled.

"Now, if you'll please all follow me." they suddenly heard their herbology professor pipe up cheerily in the distance, "In an _orderly_ fashion."

"This is it," Peter whispered and they all looked to one another as the students marched out of the open doors.

--

"Sir," a short, well-weathered boy gasped as he collapsed into a chair before the headmaster's desk, "Sir," he repeated, slightly less breathlessly and a pair of pale blue eyes smiled at him.

"I heard, I know," he stuttered, "James Potter -- and --"

Dumbledore nodded then and held up a hand.

"If," he said calmly, "You are about to tell me that Mister Potter and his friends are about to do something very stupid, then it is no news to me. However, if you are about to tell me that Mister Potter and his friends are about to go and rescue Mister Black then I must assure you I am already well aware."

"But--" the boy started and Dumbledore tried not to grin too fondly.

"I trust them," he continued, "to have their heads in the right place when it comes to their friends. And I trust that they have also accounted on Mrs.Black's persistence in regards to young Sirius."

"But--"

"Thank you," Dumbledore nodded, cutting him off, "regardless, for helping me verify that I still -- what are you calling it now?--" he paused, "oh yes, '_have it_'".


End file.
